Aksel Bratvedt: Ending Slavery in Afrika

Ask a common non-African about Africa and he would probably immediately conjure up images about slavery. With a long and gruelling record of slave trade embedded in African history, slavery has become a negative, yet unfortunately inevitable element of the region’s identity. What’s worse is that slavery still exists up to this day.

Less than a decade ago, Zach Hunter learned about slave trade in Africa and figures like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglasss, who have been influential in campaigning for the abolition of slavery. Zach was further surprised when he learned about the reality of slavery in the present time. Disturbed by this fact and not wanting to stay silent about it, he started an anti-slavery campaign. He organized the project Loose Change to Loosen Change to raise funds (and awareness) and help rescue victims of slavery and oppression through abolitionist groups like Free the Slaves and International Justice Mission. Zach Hunter was 12 years old. Reading Hunter’s story struck me. How could a twelve year-old American, who has never been to Africa, feel so moved and enraged by modern slavery, while most African leaders and governments remain silent?

It was recently reported that although slavery was ultimately criminalized in Mauritania in 2007, it is still a Herculean task for authorities to execute the anti-slavery law in the country. One of the hurdles in the abolition campaign in Mauritania is that it is hard (if not impossible) to track trades of nomadic families who constantly and frequently move across borders. Anti-slavery organization SOS Esclaves has also revealed that often, the government is reluctant to focus on slavery as they do not recognize it as a widespread problem. And this is when it hit me that maybe the greatest impediment to combating slavery is thevery same one experienced by almost all development problems: it becomes hackneyed, trite, and deemed insignificant with the passing of time.

One of our deepest imperfections as humans is our capacity and propensity to forget. A compelling concern may dominate the papers today, but give it a few days, and another issue or controversy will take over the headlines. Such a tendency to forget is even greater in places such as Mauritania, places that are hammered with countless waves of issues and challenges that all demand immediate attention. With other equally-important concerns such as poverty, corruption, or HIV filling the public sphere, it is somehow understandable how government officials fail to recognize the prevalence and urgency to combat slavery.

With this in mind, what I think should be a constant priority in the fight against slavery is regularly reminding and informing people (the authorities, especially) of how important it is to end slave trade and carry out policies to aid the exploited and oppressed. Hamend Mbagha, president of the independent advisory body of Mauritania’s Commission on Human Rights, echoes this sentiment. He says that “a mass awareness-campaign is needed in rural regions where slavery is thought to be most heavily practised, so that masters and slaves can wake up to a new reality”.

Aksel Bratvedt is a London based businessman working on financial deals as well as actively building up new companies. He works in Europa, Asia, South-America and Africa.